Paradise Lost

SOME DAY

2010-06-29T03:42:00.000-07:00

Some people live their dreams
Some people close their eyes
Some people's destiny Passes by
There are no guarantees
There are no alibis
That's how our love must be
Don't ask why
It takes some time
God knows how long
I know that I can forget you
As soon as my heart stops breakin'
Anticipating
As soon as forever is through
I'll be over you
Remembering times gone by
Promises we once made
What are the reasons why
Nothing stays the same
There were the nights holding you close
Someday I'll try to forget them
Someday I'll be over you

I wanted to post these images as proof that "as soon as FOREVER is through, I'll be over you". This is my "home" eight hours a day or more sometimes. I, unlike someone else, will not surrender my memories. They were all good. Fate is cruel in that it appears that the phrase "star crossed lovers" could easily apply. I can't change fate and I can't change my life {it is WONDERFUL} in order to save someone else's happiness. I wish I had done things differently, I wish things had changed years ago when they had the chance. Things did not change then and they did not change now. The only thing I have control over is my choice. I can choose to be miserable {which hasn't been working up to now}, or I can choose to be happy and enjoy my life. I choose happiness.

Regret can be a cruel mistress and when we date her for long periods of time, she takes hold of our hand and leads us into her darkness from which there is little chance of escape. She comes to visit me often but I choose to be terrible company for her and she inevitably leaves. I wish I could say she leaves me unscathed but that isn't true. Some of her scars run very deep and will never heal. I love two, but I am "in love" with just one. Is it enough to save us? I don't know. I have a lot of damage to repair and I hope I am given the time to do so. I thought I was different, I thought I was unique but in the end I am seen as being weak. I have and will always have a place in my heart, a place that no one else has ever reached that belongs to her and will always belong to the one I seem destined to NEVER be with.

I saw a movie the other night and a little girl asked if animals have souls and the answer was yes. That they indeed have souls and the reason the person knew this was because they were sure that animals went to Heaven because if they didn't Heaven would be a very lonely boring place. I wonder if in Heaven all things are righted, all things are fixed and the things that couldn't be on Earth will be in Heaven. If I ever get there I hope this is true. Until then I must try to remember to smile and to choose happiness over sadness and that REGRET can come and visit but she must never be allowed to stay for long periods of time..

Look carefully at the images... SHE is there at 2 years old and something she made for me. They are there to remind me, there is a place in my heart that will forever be hers. She may never choose to remember me, but I WILL only forget her when forever ends...

FALLING APART

2010-05-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time I was falling in love
And now I'm only falling apart
Nothing I can say
It's a total eclipse of the heart.

It's been a while and there are so many reasons why. It seems that no matter what I do, I just don't do anything correct any more. Everything seems to be "falling apart". Some days are good but so many are bad. It seems I may judge myself based on the bad days and as such, I don't really like myself. I find little if anything to like and I wonder how much longer this can go on..

There was a wake last night for the oldest man in the church. He discovered he had Leukemia and the treatment would have killed him so they opted to keep him pain free until the end. I am still so freaked out by death that even though it was a closed casket, I still could not go in... So many people were there. I looked over the people there to pay their respects and I wondered, if it were me, would there be at least three people willing to come?

I heard "Total Eclipse of the Heart" the other day and it was as though it was the first time I had ever heard it. The words were so profound, much more than just lyrics, they were singing about me, about my life. How I once was so happy and now I am just falling apart, a little more each day. Oddly enough as I look at this from the outside, I realize no matter what happens or could have happened, this is who I will be and would have been no matter what road I took. I know why I avoided this space for as long as I have, it is like a mirror into my soul. One that forces me to see the truth and it is not pleasant. There is no fix for this, there is no escape, there is no resolution. Like the days following your inability to sleep, I feel like I am just dragging myself through life and trying to stay out of everyone's way. I don't seem to be doing a very good job at any of it... I don't understand how it is that I can long for a friendship that I can not have and someone else longs {perhaps she hates me so much there will never be a longing again} for more than that. Anything is better than this nothing and yet the nothing wins and consumes me... How can this "NOTHING" be so much better than anything even if it were just a hellow each morning, each week or each month?

There have been no dreams and nothing to grasp for in my sleep. It's really strange how sometimes when you dream vivid dreams, you awake believing they either happened or that they happened to send you a message and they leave you feeling like there is hope. What then is the opposite of hope? What is the lack of hope? When there are no dreams, there is no belief that perhaps things can still work out. What are we without hope? I'll tell you who we are, we are ME!!!

I WILL REMEMBER YOU

2010-02-02T16:34:00.000-08:00

I will be walking one day
Down a street far away
And see a face in the crowd
and smile
Knowing how you made me laugh
Hearing sweet echoes of you from the past
I will remember you.

Look in my eyes while you're near
Tell me what's happening here
See that I don't want to say good-bye

Our love is frozen in time
I'll be your champion and you'll be mine
I will remember I will remember you.
Later on When this fire is an ember
Later on When the night's not so tender
Given time
Though it's hard to remember darlin'
I will be holding
I'll still be holding to you
I will remember you.

So many years come and gone
And yet the memory is strong
One word we never could learn Good-bye
True love is frozen in time
I'll be your champion and you'll be mine
I will remember you
So please remember I will remember you
I will remember you I will remember you I will remember you.

We talked about this last night, and I told the good doctor that I feel like I did before summer began. I am right back to seeing things {movies} and hearing things that remind me of Viva and I change the channel or shut it off to avoid the memory and the pain and I know she does the same things once and a while when she hates me just a little. There are days I swear I feel like I could ride the wind, the feeling is fleeting and lasts just for a couple of seconds, I can do no wrong... All things are possible and life is good... Then I think of how much I wish I could be with Viva to share this and CrAsH!!! I am broken into millions of pieces on the ground and all the king's men and all the king's horses can't put me together again... How the hell can horses reassemble a broken person???

You know the really funny part? Once I feel like I am soaring it is the thought that I am "defying gravity" that causes me to plummet. Defying Gravity being the show that Viva got me hooked on and as soon as I decided it was exactly the type of program I like, they pulled it from the air and then I pulled my love from Viva... Neither were connected but will now be forever a connection in my mind...

My niece tells me she had yet another dream about the dog that is coming {puppy}... She tells me that she dreamed she came home to a house that was NOT the house we live in now... I wanted to ask her if perhaps it was in Florida, but I thought the better of dying and kept my mouth shut... She said the puppy was waiting for her at the door but she felt like she was lost because it was our dog but not our house... You have no idea how much I wanted to say that I have had the same dream and that the dog is waiting for me at the door to MY house in Florida...

I took some time to sit alone in the dark... There was a scientist once who made a special room devoid of all light and he asked a large number of people to sit in there and tell him what they thought of or what they thought they may have seen... Most of them reported they saw the number 2000 and the end of the Earth... Well we know that didn't happen... I tried it to see what I am thinking and feeling... Truth be told, I love my wife, I can NEVER hurt her and I am astounded she has given me this second chance and chose to stay with me.. She has done NOTHING wrong in the 11 years we have been together... There are times she frustrates me, but I have never been so mad at her that I could have hated her... I wonder why it is I went off the beaten path??? I am lonely, there is no doubt, I feel left out as the topics of conversation around me do NOT interest me and as such I prefer to be off alone somewhere... I think this is why they all agreed to the dog, they know that with a dog, I will have companionship and NO time to feel lonely... I also know I have NEVER been a whole person since I met Viva... She is part of me, now and forever... Perhaps I will never be the same thing to her, but she truly is half of me... All the king's horses and all the king's men.... Nothing will ever be the same... I realize that I am the whole person that I am and all that I can be and I just have to settle for that...

I hate everything about me, perhaps that is part of being not a whole person... I avoid mirrors because I just see a sad lost soul standing there when I do look... I figure that if I owned a car and only four of the eight cylinders were working, and the car still ran, not as good as it could but functionally, then that would have to be good enough for me... Before anyone gets the idea they can fix what ails me, know this, I choose the road South, I break the other four cylinders... I may be able to fix the previously four bad ones, but I will break the other four by choosing to go South... No matter what I do, I can NEVER fix it so that it is complete and whole...

The good doctor told me last night that I am a "perfectionist" and I have a "compulsive disorder"... I don't know about the compulsive disorder but I am a perfectionist at things I do and others try to do for me... I think that comes from growing up and cutting my neighbor's lawn... She demanded a certain pattern and perfection... I used to mix it up on our lawn... Cutting one direction one week and another the next week... Helen wanted the rows going one way only and perfect rows where the wheel rides in the previous row's line... I suppose after 8 years of that, I too look at grass cutting the same way... I hate whenever someone else cuts my grass and makes it a task to finish as quick as possible... The grass is left with a bunch of Mohawk's... I call it Kentucky Smart Grass... It knows when the mower is approaching and lies down to make it look like it has already been cut... Then when the coast is clear it pops back up and presto!!! A Mohawk!!!

Well I miss her and that's all I am allowed in this life... Nothing is going to change... The nephew left to return to South America as he sees no future having crashed his car and having his license suspended/revoked for seven months... I guess he knows how lucky he is to be alive... The smell of the air bags had him really spooked three days later when we went to empty his car out... Oh well... Another night and another game, thank God for hockey games to keep me occupied and busy so I don't fall any deeper into depression... Then again, each time I am out there I think of all the times Viva used to page me when I was refereeing games and how she made me smile each time I knew it was her causing my pager to ring during a game and how I would crave that stoppage in play so I could see what she sent...

I realized this morning at some point that I did NOT leave my previous marriage in order to be with Viva back then... She chose the correct choice, to stay and raise her family... I became stupid because I couldn't be alone and the rest is history... I hope she did NOT end her marriage thinking this time we were going to be together and that was what she had to do... I hope and pray she did it because it was the right thing to do and she will find happiness and all that she deserves in life because of the choice she made....

SOMETHING

2010-01-20T06:34:00.000-08:00

Something wrong with me,

can't get you out of my mind

I see your face in everything I do

It feels like I've known you for a long long time

I only want to make it with you

Something in your eyes that just wont let me forget you

Something in you face that keeps me hanging around you

Something's got a hold of me the day that I met you

There's something wrong with me

Something's wrong with me

Yesterday I saw you on the street with someone

I said it doesn't matter to me

Behind this smile, I'm wearing all the tears of a clown

Cause loving you is where I want to be

Something in your eyes that just wont let me forget you

Something in you face that keeps me hanging around you

Something's got a hold of me the day that I met you

Something wrong with me

Something's wrong with me

There's Something wrong with me

There's Something wrong

Something in your eyes that just wont let me forget you

Something in you face that keeps me hanging around you

Something's got a hold of me the day that I met you

Something wrong with me

I know it's been a while, a lot of things have changed. A lot of things have happened, some of which helps to solidify my hatred of my birthday. For the second time in four years, I spent my birthday in a legal mess caused by my nephew... 1.92 intoxication level, gets behind the wheel of a car registered to me and insured by me and decides to park it into a tree on the way home. Of course the police arrive and take him in to test him and then cite him. Two days later on my birthday, I'm in court to find out what they will do to him. In the end, he gets the minimum of the mandatory punishment. This being, SEVEN months with a suspended license. With that he decides it is best to return to Colombia which will happen on 25 of January. What a mess, in his plea/statement to the judge, I thought the judge would start crying. The judge went from hard ass to sympathetic even attempting to coerce him into hiring a lawyer to fight the charges and to furthermore STAY here.

This makes me feel sad because Viva said she had something planned for my birthday. In all actuality, she was the FIRST person to melt my icy birthday hating heart... She brought me a white bear, a balloon and a painting that I have here on my desk next to me now, sitting next to a picture of her as a small child on a table next to her birthday cake in Cuba.... I swear these will never be removed from my side ever again... I may not have her physically in my life, but I will have her ALWAYS in my heart, mind and soul....

I know this is hard on everyone, I see them trying to convince themselves it is for the best and deep down inside I think they believe it. Still it has been almost nine years he {nephew} has been with me/us and I feel like he is more my son than his mother's. Perhaps this is the wake-up call that he needed to grow up and to accept the responsibilities of being an adult like he should have four years ago at 21.

Meet the new future family member. She is just two weeks old and will be with her brothers and sisters for six more weeks before she can leave cold cold cold Michigan to come and live with us, her new family. We were first on the list of two breeders and 11th on the third breeder's list {there are only three breeders of this type of dog}. Finally a litter came along and all the right ingredients occurred to bring about the EXACT dog we want. White, mostly white, white and gray, female with two blue eyes. She was born the week of my birthday, probably the day the nephew crashed his car. I'll know more when I get her and her paperwork. This gives me the reason to get through each day, not to mention just dragging my butt out of bed anymore. I dread the whole "I'm afraid of her" scenes I'm pretty sure will come from my sister in law and niece, but I can't worry about that right now... The biggest worry will be the "accidents" and having to listen to the griping about it. Fortunately I bought a steam cleaner to take care of them immediately...

She doesn't have the gray as I had dreamed that she would, so I don't know if this causes a rift in the dream scape/reality world that will cause my dream to skew or change or actually come true or not come true. Then again, I've never dreamed a dream that has happened and many that I probably have I NEVER remember.

We had visitors/pests I mean guests, invite themselves to our house last weekend. Initially they planned to invade us for five days!!! It was explained to them that we have LIVES and as such can not be available to chauffeur them around and take care of them {entertainment and food} for FIVE days... They then opted to go to Connecticut to be with cousins. We thought we heard the last of them and then they call and say they will be arriving Sunday and leaving on Tuesday. Did you ever wonder what happens when a bomb explodes in a suitcase??? I now know what it looks like. They took over the entire basement and there were THINGS everywhere!!!! Fortunately it wasn't for a MONTH!!!! I guess in some cough cough cough cultures this is the norm... Invite yourself to a friend's house for a FREE vacation!!! In the end, they had fun and extended an invitation to stay with them whenever we go to Miami... HA!!!! I told them I wasn't allowed in Miami... Which of course caused a rift later that night when I was asked to explain what I meant by that. Fortunately I had planned and carefully rehearsed my response well in advance...

More later...

It occurred to me yesterday that as time goes on and on, I find more and more things I wanted to say and feel the need to have said. I realized that each time I think the perfect song or movie comes along that would be the medium that would convey exactly what I want to say or how I feel, another one and another one and another one comes along. No matter how many thoughts or feelings I have and regardless of how many different mediums there are that would convey those feelings and ideas and thoughts, another song or movie shows up to do it. It's a vicious circle an unending paradox that will drive you insane if you allow it. I think I finally realized that in order to move on, you have to accept that you have said all that needed to be said and just accept that there may never be another chance to say more.

I know each time I use a computer, I feel like Viva is watching me... There are ways that another person can use their computer to take control of your computer to install files or fix problems or whatever... I always feel like she is sitting there watching all that I do... Oddly enough I have felt like this since I met her!!!! It is the one thing and constant that I NEVER got around to telling her. I suppose if I had the chance in some way or another it would be the first thing I tell her.... I still feel like each time I show up for work, she will appear at some point during the day because she has a training class in NYC or something and just figures to stir things up... Each day that starts and ends without her appearing just leaves me a little more sadder knowing the chances of it ever happening become less and less and less as time goes on... Know this Viva, if I ever find myself ALONE, you will NEVER be able to get rid of me again!!!!

Yesterday

2009-12-12T17:18:00.000-08:00

I just cant believe your gone
still waiting for morning to come
when I see if the sun will rise, in the way that you're by my side
well we got so much in store
tell me what is it I'm reaching for
when we're through building memories I'll hold yesterday in my hurting my heart

they can take tomorrow and the plans we made
they can take the music that we never play
all the broken dreams take everything
just take it away, but they can never have yesterday
they can take the future that we'll never know
they can take the places that we said we will go
all the broken dreams take everything
just take it away, but they can never have yesterday

you always choose to stay
I should be thankful for everyday
heaven knows what the future holds, or least where the story goes
I never believed until now
I know I'll see you again I'm sure
no its not selfish to ask for more
one more night one more day one more smile on your face

but they can't take yesterday
they can take tomorrow and the plans we made
they can take the music that we never play
all the broken dreams take everything
just take it away, but they can never have yesterday
they can take the future that we'll never know
they can take the places that we said we will go
all the broken dreams take everything
just take it away, but they can never have yesterday

I thought our days would last forever
but it wasn't our destiny
cause in my mind we had so much time, but I was so wrong
no I can believe that
I can still find the strength in the moments we made
I'm looking back on yesterday

repeat chorus

It appears I am in the process of creating a soundtrack here. A common theme so to speak. I find myself not really doing any one thing that I look forward too. I find myself mostly just existing. I know that sounds weird, bad and perhaps a bit strange, but just merely existing is the best I can do right now. I seem to have no feelings towards anyone or any thing. Did you ever wonder what it would be like if love had left you? If you no longer felt the feelings that love provides? How would life be, what would it become?

My dad underwent treatment for cancer, several times. The first time, he lost all his ability to taste food. He would tell us it was the worst thing to have happen to him. Not to be able to taste food left all food tasting like cardboard to him. It came as no surprise to me when I found out he refused treatment for cancer the third time he had it return. His quality of life was gone and had been for more than six years. What then constitutes "quality of life"? Does mobility, speech, vision, hearing, taste, touch or smell constitute "quality of life", or perhaps there are intangibles that are far more devastating to lose? Having my vision decrease little by little over the years does not bother me, the same goes for my hearing. I really enjoyed the scene in the movie "A Lot Like Love" where Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Payne challenge each other to see who can go without talking and not just talking but making a sound the longest. There are several minutes where they do stupid things to make each other laugh or pretend to choke before she finally gives in. Ashton tells her, my brother is deaf Em, I can go days without talking. There are times I wish I could go months without talking.

Honestly months without talking wouldn't bother me the least. How can you enjoy a Prius when you've driven a Lamborghini??? I mean seriously, there are some really dim bulbs in the World and try as hard as you can, there just seems to be NO common ground in which to communicate where it stimulates your mind and gives you cravings for more. Worse yet are the ones that ALWAYS have a story which will start as, "get this" or "you'll never guess what happened to me"... I want to scream and tell them, "let me guess you found another way to bore me with some dumb thing that happened to you, for the next 20 or 25 minutes like you always do"??? Here's the part where I say, "the proof's in the pudding"...

We went to see my niece's Christmas show at her school. I'm so happy I did as her mom thought it would be better to go see a high school basketball game with her son, go figure... Some oddly eccentric man walked up and stood behind me before the show began. I picked a spot I though would be best for pictures, along a wall and away from everyone else. After a few moments he starts asking me about my camera. Then he tells me that he photographs barns. I turned because he now had my full attention as I have seen his work all over the pizza shop where we buy our once a month pizzas. His photographs adorn several walls and are for sale at $200 or more. We began talking all about cameras and photography and he said he was interested in buying the same camera I have or perhaps the model above mine {in the professional line of cameras}. Unfortunately the show began and I went back to taking pictures. I wondered the entire time why he hadn't brought his camera/cameras to photograph his son. He did bring a camera and to my surprise, it was a $50 cheap ass deal that you'd find on sale in any WalMart in the country. Then he stunned me by asking me if I wasn't using a flash. I turned and called up the last captured image and showed him how BRIGHT and CLEAR it was. He looked shocked and surprised the camera could do that in the available lighting. Perhaps I have been selling myself short all this time and I could be making lots of money from my hobby, but this guy just totally blew me away with his lack of knowledge and the fact that he presents his images as being a PROFESSIONAL photographer.

Back to wishing for silence again. They say, be careful what you wish for.... Recall the dream I said I had where my brother and I were living in a house in Florida that we bought with the sale of my mothers house after she died? I had also dreamed that we/I had a dog and that Viva came to visit after dragging me out of church by my ear and was greeted by my dog. Well here's is almost the IDENTICAL dog of my dreams and it is the FATHER of a litter of pups of which I get SECOND pick from!!!!

This all makes me wonder if I am on a crash course towards destiny, in which case how much culpability do I have in either destroying what I have now or in the reason why she isn't a part of my dreams of the future. I know things are horrible at home right now. I blame her for EVERYTHING. I see reactions from her and interpret them as being frustrations with me and an effort to protect her family {sister/brother in law/niece/nephew}. I wonder what if anything she tells her mother. I would imagine her mother would tell her she was insane to side with the ones she is siding with as time and time again they end up being wrong. Well until then how do I proceed? Do I prepare for what I think is coming? Do I try to change the images of the future oh Spirit of Christmas yet to come, {thanks Scrooge}? I have so much that I want to talk with her about and explain and yet I feel like I can not do it. I look at her sitting at the school concert and think she hates being there and doesn't want to be there and she is there just to keep an eye on me. Where is the "quality of life"??? How much more before I too resist the cure and succumb to the disease?

Need You Now

2009-12-09T04:11:00.000-08:00

Picture perfect memories, Scattered all around the floor.
Reaching for the phone cause, I can’t fight it any more.
And I wonder if I ever cross your mind.
For me it happens all the time.
It’s a quarter after one, I’m all alone and I need you now.
Said I wouldn’t call but I lost all control and I need you now.
And I don’t know how I can do without, I just need you now.

Another shot of whiskey, can’t stop looking at the door.
Wishing you’d come sweeping in the way you did before.
And I wonder if I ever cross your mind.
For me it happens all the time.
It’s a quarter after one, I’m a little drunk, And I need you now.
Said I wouldn’t call but I lost all control and I need you now.
And I don’t know how I can do without, I just need you now.

Yes I’d rather hurt than feel nothing at all.
It’s a quarter after one, I’m all alone and I need you now.
And I said I wouldn’t call but I’m a little drunk and I need you now.
And I don’t know how I can do without, I just need you now.
I just need you now. Oh baby I need you now.

Sometimes on our climb back up {to normal} we reach for what we think is a stronghold or sure footing only to find it to be nothing more than an illusion. Nothing more than an express ticket back into the abyss. For me this came in the form of a sister in law. A sister in law who avoided eight days of hard work by the rest of us. A sister in law who seems to ALWAYS avoid "group" projects. While the rest of us were busy repairing walls and painting followed by shampooing carpets, she was busy talking on the phone.

When she finally gets involved, it comes when EVERYTHING is in its place and all rooms are practically set. The side of the basement which I believed would be mine and mine alone, a place to hang out and unwind with the dog, suddenly became the target of her desire. After four days of wall repair, painting and shampooing the carpets and decorating, all that was left was the arrival of the furniture {sectional} on Saturday. My side of the basement had/has become the NICEST room in the house. My sister in law decides that her side of the basement is a bit crowded with a desk, two futons a bureau and a tread mill, all of which she refuses to part with. She promptly rearranges everything so that her treadmill is positioned at the bottom of the stairs, blocking light switches and a quarter of the way into what was supposed to be my side of the basement.

I continued to sit there brewing wondering if she had further moving plans to where the items would get a final move back into her space, it didn't happen. In a fit of anger of throwing my hockey equipment around the unfinished side of the basement, I went to cool off. Later I was asked what happened and why I was so angry. I responded that I no longer want the basement, the dog or anything else. I just need a four foot space on the floor of our bedroom and to be left alone!!!! I haven't spoken since.

The following day, yesterday, I had another appointment with the witch doctor. She got angry at me for not standing up to all of them and telling them it is my space and my sanctuary!!! I swear I was praying for some illness to come and take me away for good. I'm so tired of everything. I'm just plain worn out from trying to please everyone and then either hurting them or having them walk all over me as a thank you. You know the expression, give someone an inch and they take a mile? This is my family now. They view generosity as a weakness one that they can exploit and take more than is offered and stand there defiantly and look you in the eye an tell you they think you are being unfair!!!

Apparently I have been categorized as being a person that tries to please everyone but myself. That I think of others before I ever think of me. I'm told there is a balance, but in all these years, I've never found it. It seems all I can find is sadness...

A change of direction may have occurred recently as a litter of puppies was born last Monday. Supposedly three are white or mostly white and I am in line to have the second pick of the litter. This litter is in Alabama near the Tennessee border. Depending on the cost to bring the puppy here, {should I go through with this}, I may opt instead to drive there and pick her up myself. That being said, I would no doubt pass close by Murfreesboro... Some 13 hours from here. Home of the supposed woman who went to her grave loving me and had her ashes spread all over the beach we spent all our time together. I wonder how she would react if I were to show up on her door step out of the blue??? I never fell for that hokey story, great fiction, great reading but way beyond believable. Oddly enough, she was supposed to have died of Leukemia. Ten years later when I reached the age she was supposed to have died from Leukemia, I am told I have Leukemia... Mine being mild and mostly treatable, I think I am cured, {fortunately or unfortunately} depending on how I feel day to day any more.

I had a dream I rang her doorbell and eventually when she realized who I was, she went all apologetic on me and then begged to tag along with me to get the dog. We talked and talked and I realized I no longer had feelings for her. I had held onto her memory only long enough to find out why she lied to me when her biggest sin would be to lie to her. I never did that, and here she was alive and proof of telling the worst lie I have ever been told. I suppose there's a moral there somewhere or a hidden meaning to the dream which is trying to tell me something, but I am far to weary to try and figure it out...

2009-12-02T09:26:00.000-08:00

She came on like the night
and she held on tight
And the world was right when she made love to me
We were free

She moved in like a friend, started loving me
And I thought I'd found my heaven in her arms
But the morning when I woke up I was here and she was gone
Now I'm hanging on
Maybe you can tell me

How a love so right can turn out to be so wrong?
Oh my darling
How a love so right can turn out to be so wrong?

Where did she go when I need her close to me
And the perfect story ended at the start
I thought you came forever and you came to break my heart
Now I'm hanging on on the chance that you'll come back to me

I could take it in my stride
Start living for the moment
Maybe half the things we sought were never there
Simply open up our eyes and break it down to size
It isn't really fair

Perhaps, happiness is a warm puppy as Charlie Brown once said of Snoopy. I'm not sure just how much of my misery or being miserable has swayed the powers to be to agree to a puppy, but low and behold... I spent the better part of three weeks going breed by breed looking for a dog that wouldn't be a shedding problem and one that people weren't typically allergic to {NEVER a poodle!!!}. It was there I found a breed called SID {Siberian Indian Dog}. Once I saw the photos, I knew this was the dog for me. They look like wolves and bearing that in mind I wonder if perhaps we do resemble our dogs.

After spending an afternoon at the flea market recently, we took in all the people wandering around with their puppies {must have been a puppy explosion in the Poconos or something}. It was extremely easy to see who the dogs resembled as they often resembled one or both of their owners. It was amazing. So I wonder, when people see these dogs, the SIDs {Siberian Indian Dogs} they all say the same thing, "they're gorgeous"... I still feel like the UGLY frog and wonder why time and time again I am drawn towards this style of dog. Maybe I am the exception to the rule... The owner that does NOT look like his dog...

For the first time in a while I feel like there is something to look forward to. Something to become a big part of my day and night. Perhaps it is becoming something special and needed by a living thing that will look to me for all its needs. Being the only previous dog owner in the house, it would fall on me to be the one to train her no doubt. All this and finally gaining possession of the basement after more than six years. By Saturday, the basement will have been re-painted and the furniture moved down there to make room for the new set in the living room. Finally a room for me to go to be alone and not bugged by sound or noises from the rest of the house. A place where I can sit in darkness if I so choose and just vegetate when need be. Of course it will be the perfect place for the dog and I to hang out unmolested.

Finally after all this time I can see/feel a tiny bit of happiness in what I want to write instead of all the doom and gloom I feel the other 23 hours of the day. Now all I have to do is wait for the perfect puppy {white or mostly white with two blue eyes} to be born. That's it for now... I still miss you Viva, I think about you all the time. I hope you try to remember me from time to time. I still feel like there is a huge hole in my chest and that I will never be complete. It's something I fear I will carry with me until the day I die. Then again that may be a good thing as I will never forget you Viva...

The really strange part in all this... My dreams about moving to Florida... I am doing this with my brother. We buy a house {of my dreams} and move in together {as I feel responsible for him in my dreams} and get settled. While getting settled, I send hundreds of letters to Viva... Some with a single line from a poem or song, others with pictures of Florida so she knows I am there... Then when we are settled in, I show up at her church and sit in the back. After she drags me out by my ear the third time I go to her church, we go back to my house. She drives so that I know she will remember the way. When she opens the door, there is my dog to greet her. The dog is exactly like the ones I am looking at getting!!!! A dog I never knew existed until I found it by chance/accident. A dog I found because I didn't feel like doing anything for the longest time. Looking at pictures of dogs cheered me up and that is how I found this breed.

Is it? Is it possible that we somehow see our own future or we create the future that we want to see? I mean, take Flash Forward for instance. Where they toy with the idea of what would happen if we knew our futures six months ahead of time. What if I am subconsciously creating my wished for future? What if perhaps my dreams are what actually will happen in my future and that I will find myself, alone with just my brother in this World and together we up and move to a less expensive Florida. We actually move so that I can pursue what gnaws on me regardless of whether I am awake or asleep.... For now the dreams are gone except the one where wolves are surrounding a puppy and I think instead to take pictures and then think better of it and rescue the puppy, not at all similar to the one I want though.

What Dreams May Come

2009-11-23T08:54:00.000-08:00

Remember all the things we wanted

Now all our memories, they're haunted

We were always meant to say goodbye

Even without fists held high, yeah

Never would have worked out right, yeah

We were never meant for do or die

I didn't want us to burn out

I didn't come here to hurt you now

I can't stop I want you to know

That it doesn't matter Where we take this road

Someone's gotta go

And I want you to know

You couldn't have loved me better

But I want you to move on

So I'm already gone

Looking at you makes it harder

But I know that you'll find another

That doesn't always make you wanna cry

Started with a perfect kiss

Then we could feel the poison set in

Perfect couldn't keep this love alive

You know that I love you so

I love you enough to let you go

I've come to realize that I feel guilty when I feel just a tiny bit happy. Once I start feeling guilty for feeling a tiny bit of happiness, I shut down again and go back to feeling sad and the hopelessness takes over once again. I don't know how much of this is just "normal" for most people, but it has never been normal to me. I continue to see things that INSTANTLY send my mind and attention to Miami. I find myself thinking and thinking some more about the fact that just perhaps, my mood is the mood being felt by another or even caused by another. Star Crossed Lovers, perhaps, or maybe just maybe we were really never meant for "do or die".

Have you seen the movie "What Dreams May Come"? This movie explores all the avenues of two souls that were meant to be together forever. The perfect match, souls that would find each other no matter where they were in the World or in death. If this truly exists, then what happens in the after life? Do we gravitate to the ones we are supposed to be with? Perhaps to ones we have NEVER met. Do we stay with the ones that gave us their heart during the mortal life? Do we just become free spirits not needing anyone or anything? Based on my past and present, I would be stunned if God would even take the time to tell me He doesn't want me in Heaven. I let so many people down and in letting them down, I let God down too. I try to find ways to make amends, but more and more it seems to me that perhaps if I just crawled under a rock, I would do less harm than any good I could muster.

I awoke from a dream this morning, it left me feeling both happy and sad. I don't understand its meaning but I'm sure it will come to me at some point. I saw a group of people I knew, looking out a window in a restaurant or some place like that at a group of animals. I looked out and saw white and gray dogs and knew immediately they were Wolves. I thought about running to my car to get a camera to capture them on film. Someone in the group then said, "that poor puppy is getting ripped to pieces". I felt horribly guilty that I didn't realize that the wolves were in a circle around a puppy and they were about to feast on it. In my mind I thought, wolves don't eat their own do they? I rushed outside and ran to the puppy that was laying there helpless whining and bleeding from her side. I never noticed nor feared the wolves. They just silently moved away and disappeared. It was then that my wife appeared and I told her they chewed off both her back legs. I could not see any paws under her rear legs the way they were crumpled. My wife said to me, she has all her feet. I was crying and I tried to look through my tears to see if I was wrong and I was. I did see all four paws, I looked harder and only saw blood on the puppy's side closest to me. I picked her up and brought her to someone I knew was in the restaurant and was a veterinarian. She looked at the puppy and said she would be fine, and she would need only rabies shots as there was no way to know if one of the wolves were infected or not. It was then I woke up and knew we had just added a puppy to our lives.

I tried to go back to sleep and I did but I did not dream any more about the puppy. In thinking about this all morning, it seems to me that I am supposed to bring a puppy home and that will help my healing {wound on the puppy is actually my wounds/suffering}. This is a monumental task given that my sister in law is NOT normal when it comes to animals!!! A kitten freaked her out to the point she feigned sneezing in order to facilitate the removal of the kitten from our lives. Hypochondriacs seem to find ways to convince themselves that instead of facing their fears and it is just fears, that there is a medical affliction that causes their anxieties. I found two breeds of dogs/canines through a lot of research that are "hypoallergenic". Supposedly even the people with the worst allergies in the World will not be affected by these animals. They shed just once a year and they have great social behaviors. Let's see how well this will fly when I attempt to press for one. Oddly enough, it is my wife's and I house and yet it feels like the in-laws believe they have the rights to make all the decisions. This could be the breaking point. $1200 for a dog that I will REFUSE to give up if push comes to shove. Maybe my salvation comes in a small furry package...

On a final note, aside from a continually miserable series of months where I seem to be re-inventing how and how long to be ill, I feel a tad better. Imagining a puppy in the house to play with will do that for me, I suppose.

Don't Turn Around

2009-11-09T06:27:00.000-08:00

I'm gonna be strong

I'm gonna do fine

Don't worry about this heart of mine

(Spoken) Walk out that door

See if I care

Go on and go, but

Don't turn around

'Cause you're gonna see my heart breaking

Don't turn around

I don't want you seeing me cry

Just walk away

It's tearing me apart that you're leaving

I'm letting you go

But I won't let you know...I won't let you know.

I'll make it through

I'll even learn to live without you

I wish I could scream out loud

That I love you,

I wish I could say to you

Don't go........

People in your life

They don't know what's going on

Too proud to turn around

He's gone

I wish I could just scream and keep on screaming. Perhaps they would just lock me away and loose the key. Perhaps in the end, that would make everyone happy... "Till I finally died, which started the whole World living". Sometimes I swear I am the last one to arrive in a place, especially when others sing the exact things I am feeling or thinking. Perhaps I am living the song without even knowing I am doing it. In other words, I know the words to the song already and alter the way I feel or act to fit the song and then recall the song when I see it matches how I feel??? That will drive me crazy trying to figure out all the loops involved in that one.

Nothing of great importance is or has happened lately. More videos to YouTube, the last one of my nephew's last JV soccer game and it seems to be pretty popular as lots of people {probably the entire team and their relatives {I tried to get each player once} has seen it}. No tears this weekend. Perhaps I have exhausted the well and it is now dry. I was once told that we will cry until we run out of tears and then we will cry some more before the sadness can finally leave us... I wish I knew where Michelle was now, I sure could use her advice.

Then again, I wonder how much good it would be to hear from someone that I destroyed her marriage {I think it was me}... She was engaged to be married to Pat... Pat was sort of a lonely soul and didn't do much of anything except pounce Michelle every now and then... I heard through a common friend that she realized that if she had feelings for someone else, then that meant she didn't love Pat enough to be his 100% and that is what marriage was supposed to be... So if I played the Devil's advocate and Michelle would give me the same advice, if I have feelings for someone else, then it means I probably should reconsider my current relationship. I know I will have to explore that tonight with the sorceress... That was my homework from last week...

Something that I have heard and keeps running through my skull, something so profound it is hard to ignore:

Caigo en esta guerra perdida

Con el alma mal herida.

Llueve tu recuerdo,

Parece una calle sin salida.

Me quede con tantas cicatrises

Rota sin ti, sin alas, ni raices.

Inevitable, Muero de amor que lugar tan común.

Irremediable crece la noche,

Se fue nuestro sol por algun tragaluz.

Cruzo un universo vacio

Sin tus brazos que eran mios.

Solo me dejaste silencios

De arcoiris desteñidos.

Sobran ya mis sueños imposibles,

Solas seran historias invisibles.

Inevitable, Muero de amor que lugar tan común.

Irremediable crece la noche,

Se fue nuestro sol por algun tragaluz.

Otra estrella que se apaga,

Otro paso de la soledad.

Y perderte será... Oh, oh

Inevitable, Muero de amor que lugar tan común.

Irremediable crece la noche,

Se fue nuestro sol por algun tragaluz

And the well has once again overflowed!!!! You know, I just want this sadness to end!!! I can find no solice in anything. I can find Nothing to at all to look forward to, nothing to excite me!!! If I had a broken leg, my wife would be all over me trying to make me feel comfortable and ease my pain. All she does now is walk by me singing her Christian songs... Songs she would sing when this whole mess happened as her way of saying.... I have God, you don't and He's going to take care of me, good luck to you!!! It's so hard to want to try to find my way back to her when she seems like she wants me to see her as "independant and strong" and someone who doesn't need me. Hell I would take a meltdown just to wake me up and see that she still cares about me...

Today is "D" day and I get to find out if Doctor Dracula will once agin see the warning signs of my HCL returning or weather or not he will see nothing and declare me cured. I got hit just below the rib last night by a puck in a high school game. When sick, my entire stomach would have been black and blue within 10 minutes of the hit. I don't even have a red mark there!!! It hurt like hell last night for five minutes after it happened and it hurts to touch today, but NOTHING is there. My body is like it has always been, unaffected by any impacts and most likely healthy as I had always been. It's my heart and sould that now suffer and I really don't think there are "soul" doctors in existance... A "Soul Man" {Blues Brothers} perhaps....

I will return perhpas to this post when the well subsiudes, for now it is too hard to see what I am typing as there seems to be something in my eyes causing multiple mistakes....

The VOID

2009-11-03T13:05:00.001-08:00

Amazingly enough, there are no songs about voids. Apparently, I have a void, gee I wonder why. It appears that it will be the crux of what ails me and the core of all that I do and have done. Imagine that!!! Just when it goes from bad to worse, the new level of horrible rears its ugly head. Time lines approached, passed and approached again. All that enters my thoughts are, will this lead to what? A trip to Chicago will lead to a New Jersey detour? No it did not. The signing of the divorce papers, will it actually happen? Only tomorrow will know and I'm quite certain he isn't and won't be talking to me because I could care less what he has to offer me any more.

Running with scissors in my hand, mom always warned me I'd get hurt and now I know she was right. We spend our time doing things that we never think much about consequences and then when it happens, there's the sudden realization that it is going to happen followed by the part where you realize just how much more painful it is compared to what you thought it would be. Still we run with them, thinking, it will never happen to me. We think ourselves immune from the mishaps of others. We consider not the ultimate consequence, we press on blissfully unaware of the impending doom. We are warned from the very first step and yet we continue on not satisfied with walking, no it is running that makes it all the safer. It is the running that flies in the face of danger. It is running that will conceal us from our inevitable path... Then it happens as it eventually must... We don't even realize it is there until we are tumbling to the ground... As you lay there in your pain, one thing runs through your mind.... Why didn't I listen??? You sit there amazed at the levels of pain that continue increasing, wondering just how much you can endure... You wonder if the pain will ever end, and still it continues.

I mentioned that no matter what I chose to do, someone would get hurt, {I couldn't add that no matter what, I was definitely going to hurt}, because the tears came in a deluge as I was told that to even compare the two of them as equals in a choose one or the other scenario hurt incredibly. It seems like I can do no right whatsoever any more. It's to the point of why bother even trying... Perhaps someday may come and I will be able to understand all that I do, but right now it is a mystery. I have no idea, and that is where all the mystery is... The past five days have been spent once again under a blanket, isolated from the World, wanting to be left alone. For the most part, that is what I get, left alone. It appears that the show has grown tiresome to others and it is easier to ignore than to try and help...

It appears I am not the only one crying in the shower either. I guess I should have known that walking through the house singing Christian tunes was actually sadness and not "I could care less about you".... Perhaps I too should admit I am doing the same thing??? I should tell of how a call came into Delila last night requesting a very special song, and the one she chose.... "Now and Forever"... Niagara Falls couldn't keep up with what happened to me next... Should I tell how songs, television programs, even places I go that I remember talking to her on the phone turn me into a mess???

Winter is approaching... With it the changing, dying of what was in preparation for what will be. A new re-birth so to speak.. A new beginning... A new start... Hope springs eternal... Still I live in the past of my mind and can not find the on ramp to life...

Elton John once wrote.... Don't let the sun go down on me... I would ask that the sun never again rise on me and perhaps I could hide my sadness till the stars all fade....

Weirdest of all weirdness just occurred.... I wanted Twizzlers from the candy machine as I am here a long time today and hunger eventually got the best of me... I wanted number 139 from the machine. I saw the number, focused JUST on that selection. I enter 139 {I swear}, but to my horror, the screw is NOT turning to deliver my Twizzlers to me... The screw below it is turning. I did NOT have enough time to see what fell into the come and get me area... I reached in and found I had somehow selected a Nestle Crunch bar!!!! In itself this is meaningless until you realize that it IS Viva's favorite candy bar!!! This sucks!!! I don't even like them and that's all I have to eat {no money til Friday}..... I swear the fates are telling me something!!! They aren't the ones faced with starting all over again, giving up something that was GREAT until I found out what I was missing... SUCKS seems like such a docile word for how it feels....

HEAVILY BROKEN

2009-10-30T04:20:00.000-07:00

...

Everyday I sit here waiting

Everyday just seems so long

And now I've had enough of all the hating

Do we even care, it's so unfair

Any day it'll all be over

Everyday there's nothing new

And now I just try to find some hope

To try and hold onto

But it starts again

It'll never end

I'm heavily broken

And I don't know what to do

Can't you see that I'm choking

And I can't even move

When there's nothing left to say

What can you do

I'm heavily broken

And there's nothing I can do

Almost giving up on trying

Almost heading for a fall

And now my mind is screaming out

I've gotta keep on fighting

But then again

It doesn't end

I'm heavily broken

...It seems that not only I believe I am "heavily broken", I get to start "individual counseling" on Monday as part of trying to figure out the enigma that has become me. Just when I started to believe that for once in my life, I had someone understand the things I do, I do without any reason, any thought and without any malice intent, she turns around and tells me I need to stay after school for extra help!!! Oh well... I have been watching, this week, the program called "World's Strictest Parents". I am shocked by what I see in the children before they go to live with these strict parents. I keep thinking who in the World is really this messed up? Apparently I am...

Nothing interests me anymore, I feel no motivation to do anything, nothing to look forward to, just struggling through each day, the best I can trying not to do something that would put myself at risk for injury. Not even writing down my feelings here interests me that much any more. I can't seem to grip any thought enough to pursue it and analyze it to extract any ounce of information from it. It seems that is what I do, whether I knew it or not, I want to know ALL the information so that I can look at it from all sides and make a decision in one direction or another in what I believe is the truth and what is the fiction. Lately I don't seem to be able to process anything, I don't care how or why things work, don't work or are the way the are. I just want to get through the day and hope that something along the way will interest me enough to make me happy for a little while.

"Flash Forward" is my replacement fix for ABC taking "Defying Gravity" off the air. In "Flash Forward", everyone gets a look at their future, 137 seconds of it six months from the present. I wonder how it would be to know what things will be like for me six months from now. I can't even concentrate on six minutes from now... The dreams are gone, dreams or fantasies it doesn't really matter does it? They're gone and with them my threads of hope. Rather than babbling aimlessly for a few more moments, perhaps this is the best place to finish up this thought if it was ever there to begin with.....

No Air

2009-10-22T05:55:00.000-07:00

....

Tell me how I'm supposed to breathe with no air
If I should die before I wake
It's 'cause you took my breath away
Losing you is like living in a world with no air
Oh I'm here alone, didn't wanna leave
My heart won't move, it's incomplete
Wish there was a way that I can make you understand

But how do you expect me
to live alone with just me
'Cause my world revolves around you
It's so hard for me to breathe

Tell me how I'm supposed to breathe with no air
Can't live, can't breathe with no air
It's how I feel whenever you ain't there
It's no air, no air
Got me out here in the water so deep
Tell me how you gonna be without me
If you ain't here, I just can't breathe
It's no air, no air No air, air No air, air No air, air No air, air

I walked, I ran, I jumped, I flew
Right off the ground to float to you
There's no gravity to hold me down for real
But somehow I'm still alive inside
You took my breath, but I survived
I don't know how, but I don't even care
So how do you expect me
to live alone with just me
'Cause my world revolves around you
It's so hard for me to breathe

No air, air No air, air No air, air No air, air No

Oddly enough, I feel everything slipping away now. As if a gardener that hasn't tended his plants finds out, they will die if not taken care of. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end, who's to say. The only thing I know for certain is that it is just me, this darkness is just me, there is no one looking to throw me a lifeline, no one concerned at how far I have fallen or continue to fall. I have to chuckle every now and then when I see these drugs advertised. They warn of the side affects and some come out and state that thoughts about suicide may be one of the drugs unwanted side affect. I guess I should avoid any and all drugs eh? Deep down inside, I feel like my pal, HCL has returned and is starting to take hold in my marrow. He has been clever and hid his return well as none of the symptoms have shown up. I wonder if on November 9 the test will confirm that the counts are off and perhaps dropping. I also wonder if I will choose to fight this time. I know this is a slow enemy, he will take his time, pick his spot. He will slowly eat away at what little foothold he can get a hold of. Eventually he will be able to open wide the door and invite all his friends back in. Last time he brought Pneumonia, Epstein's Bar, Mumps and Mr. Sinus infection.

Mr. Sinus infection is the reason I sought help. I knew Mr. Pneumonia had arrived, but he didn't worry as much as being ill and not being able to sleep because of the sinus pain. I wonder if Mr. HCL has made any new acquaintances since he visited last. I wonder if he knows the new kid on the block, H1N1 or whatever they're calling the Swine Flu. I wonder if he'll invite more guests next time or stick with a select few. I just feel so tired of everything any more. Perhaps this is part of Mr. HCL's plan, to wear down my desire to fight before he invites his friends back to finish what they started a year ago. I think that would be a blessing in the long run.

My pain ends, I get punished in eternity for my crimes that I can never seem to make amends for. I had planned to do 1000 good anonymous deeds to repay the evil things I have done in the past. I feel like it has been one step forward, three steps back anymore. I lose ground with each minute gain I make... I think I may be at 992 good deeds still to go... Then again what constitutes "good deeds"??? Is it when you go out of your way to help someone? Is it just doing something as innocent as holding a door open for the person behind you or coming towards you? My definition is that it requires going out of your way and spending time doing something for someone that they can not do themselves.

Helen Reddy once sang, "I never promised you a rose garden, there has to be a little rain sometimes". I guess a little rain would be fine, but aren't rainbows God's promise to us that he would never again cause 40 days of rain and flood the Earth? I have been under this rain cloud for 35 days and counting... Unfortunately I don't have an Ark to take refuge in........ Perhaps the sharks will find me soon and take me mercifully quick.

Time in a Bottle

2009-10-21T09:14:00.000-07:00

.....

If I could save time in a bottle

The first thing that Id like to do

Is to save every dayTill eternity passes away

Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever

If words could make wishes come true

Id save every day like a treasure and then,

Again, I would spend them with you

If I had a box just for wishes

And dreams that had never come true

The box would be empty

Except for the memory

Of how they were answered by you

...Jim Croce sat up late one night, a night not unlike any other night. Another night when his wife went off to bed, angry at how little time they were spending together. Jim, although a GREAT songwriter, failed to be able to tell his wife how much she meant to him. He could not find the words to convey how he loved her so much it hurt. He sat down and decided he would try and write these things into a song. He went upstairs, woke up his wife and asked her to listen to the song he had written. It is then he would tell her all the things he somehow could not say but came easily in song.

I wonder and wonder and wonder some more if perhaps I didn't say all the things I could have said or should have said to Viva. I heard someone say that when we are healthy we have a thousand wishes, but when we are sick, we have but one. Too many times we hold back the things that should be said between each other for fear of becoming to vulnerable, too open to rejection and hurt. We fail each other and hide behind the mask of nothing can hurt me. In the movie, Jersey Girl, Liv Tyler tells Ben Affleck that maybe she felt something for him for all of ten minutes before his daughter caught them in the shower together. Then she tells him she has to get back to work and disappears inside the store to find a dark corner to cry. Instead of telling him how she really felt, she hides it inside and we watch as her heart breaks into a million pieces.

Viva, do you know how much I miss you? Do you know how much I think about you?

Everything I do, every place I go, you are there. I can not escape your memory. You know I remember everything, that is the least I hope you remember about me and that you can be certain that I will take your memory and every thing about you to my final breath.

I had a premonition yesterday that you were going to walk in the front door where I work. You didn't but the feeling was ever so strong. Sometimes I can feel you with me, I know you are angry, I know you are hurt, so am I.

Joey, baby - dont get crazy

Detours. fences...

I get defensive

I know youve heard it all before -

So I dont say it anymore

I just stand by and watch you Fight your secret war.

Although I used to wonder why -

I used to cry till I was dry.

Still sometimes I get a strange pain Inside

Oh, joey, if youre hurting so am i.

Joey, honey - I got some money

All is forgiven. listen, listen

And if I seem to be confused

I didnt mean to be with you.

And when you said I scared you,

Well I guess you scared me too.

But we got lucky once before

And if youre somewhere out there Passed out on the floor.

Oh joey, Im not angry anymore.

Everlasting Love

2009-10-20T06:24:00.000-07:00

......

I've been here all your life, watching your crying game

You were the heaven in my lonely world, and he was your sun And your rain

I was losing you before I ever held you tight

Before you ever held me in your arms, and I won't make you blue

And maybe an everlasting love will do

Ah, we got an everlasting love

So tall, so wide, so high, above the rumble of thunder down below

It's your love I need, It's the only show

And it's you I want an everlasting dream

Can take us anywhere are the tears of yesterday

We killed the pain, we blew away the memories of the tears we cried

And an everlasting love will never die

Take me out of the cold, give me what I've hungered for

If it's the pleasure of taking My heart that you need, then it only makes me love you more

I was yours before The stars were born and you were mine

I could have saved you all the pain you knew

And I won't make you cry

And maybe an everlasting love can try

I was yours before the stars were born and you were mine.... So why then has fate, time, circumstance and timing conspired against us? Why then have they made certain that every step of our lives would only pull us further from each other? I kid you not, it has been 30 days so far and I feel like I can no longer hold onto the thin thread that helps me maintain my sanity. From the outside in, and trust me I have these conversations multiple times a day with myself, the answer would seem to be simple. I should make my choice and not look back. Perhaps it is easy for some to do this, but I feel like I am always looking back. That is my fatal flaw I suppose.

Achilles had his heal, the one where his mother held him by the back of the heal when she dunked him into the river of immortality and by which became his down falling. I look back. I live in the past, worrying that there are still things left unsaid. I worry that there exists someone who believes I am NOT suffering to the point of a nervous breakdown, and that I am NOT suffering at all. Let's face it, no matter what choice I make/made, I would still be in this position, wondering if perhaps I didn't do enough or try hard enough to save my marriage. A marriage that made me very happy for 9 years and 9 months and the ONLY wedge possible that could have come between us, I put there or by suffering as I am now.

I got a letter three weeks ago from my ex wife. She wanted to tell me a few things. I had thought she would decide to sit down to write about what a loser I was when we were together. Instead she told me a few things that I may have suspected but spent no time pondering. She told me how all these years later it has been easy to allow everyone to believe that I was the reason for our divorce. My actions and my behavior were the reason we could no longer be together. She went on to say that she would admit to the fact that she made no effort to try and save the marriage once I put the holes in the ship. She also apologized for all the times that she would just give me a scowl, frown or disparaging look to push me further into the well of I want out of here. Of course because religion wasn't important to her then, she has since found it and now resorts to it in order to let me know she is praying for me. She also had to let me know she has also been crying over this whole mess, go figure, she was brought into it by my wife in order to tap her resources to find out about Viva... Her meddling is and was the trump card that forced me to act one way or another to protect Viva, even though Viva will never see it that way. The only way to get them both to back off was to cut all ties with Viva.

It was then, 19 September 2009 at 10:42 AM that I had my first nervous breakdown... Once I could regain some of my motor skills, I went home, crawled into bed and feigned illness for the rest of that day and the four that followed. Here it comes... Here it comes... Here comes my nineteenth nervous breakdown.....

Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown

2009-10-16T07:21:00.000-07:00

You better stop, look around
Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes
Here comes your nine-teenth nervous breakdown.
Here comes your nine-teenth nervous breakdown
Here comes your nine-teenth nervous breakdown

There were times when I swear I used to look forward to sleep. Not that I ever slept much, I guess I figured the World would go by while I wasted my time sleeping or something. Five hours always seemed like too much to me. It never ceased to amaze me how some people required ten or more hours a night!!! This past month, I spend my nights worried, thinking and day dreaming hoping that once I do fall asleep it will be for a long time and yet less than an hour goes by and I am back to being awake and watching the clock all over again. Last night seems typical.. Ten minutes here, twenty minutes there and suddenly, poof... it is five in the morning. I seem to recall the scene in "Blazing Saddles" when Gene Wilder holds out his left hand to demonstrate how steady his nerves are and is told, "steady as a rock", then he says "yes but I shoot with this one" and holds out a violently shaking right hand.

It is in recalling this scene that I base my current affairs on, perhaps it was intended to mean his nerves were shot, but I take it as being that perhaps it is a sign of an immanent meltdown. I can recall just three times prior feeling this way. The first was in basic training while sick as a dog, no sleep {everyone coughing all night long} I felt like I was terrified of EVERYTHING!!! The second time was when installing sky light windows on my first house, I felt like I was on the edge of dying with every step. It wasn't until I finished and climbed down off the steep pitched roof did the shaking and trembling start. It lasted a full day afterwards. Now I have it again. It started almost a month ago and has been present ever since. Let me try to show you how it feels. Did you ever do something so WRONG that you knew you would get into HUGE trouble if caught and all the while you are terrified looking and waiting for that moment when you will be discovered? Magnify that times a thousand and then you would be close.

My wife was supposed to meet with the sorceress last night, the sorceress cancelled due to some potions she had to mix up or something {she actually had to go to see a doctor because she has bronchitis}. They rescheduled for tonight, so again I must suffer through the wait, worrying about what they will conclude with their session.

There have been times during the past few weeks when all I want is to be alone, just completely alone, perhaps for the rest of my life. This way I will not hurt anyone else and I can go on with the rest of my life not being hurt in return. I think I have enough hurt in me to last the rest of my lifetime. I most certainly do not need any more. I failed the sorceress in that I did not tell her how much I miss talking to and with Viva. I failed in not telling her that I feel as though I still have things that I wanted to tell Viva and that there isn't a moment during the day in which I don't think about things that I wish I could talk to her about. I suppose I neglected to tell the sorceress how empty and sad I feel every moment of every day any more and yet I have a great life and someone who loves me to death. I'm not certain how much longer that love will hold onto what is left of me, but it still exists for the time being. Perhaps some of my fear is that tonight will be the night that candle is blown out forever after the sorceress makes her conclusion about me and this whole mess.

My company is bidding on a contract for a J&J company in Jacksonville Florida. I checked the map. Jacksonville is at the top of Florida so it is a good long drive to Viva's city. I try and envision what I would do if I were sent there to actually do the work as I have been one of the two individuals tasked with quoting the work. Each scenario turns out bad, no matter what I come up with. It seems that as long as I am NOT free, then no scenario would ever work, it would only lead to more pain and more heartache for everyone involved. Plus I know my wife and she would call and call my hotel room every night to make certain I did not venture too far from there. If a day went by and she didn't hear from me, she'd know what I did and by the time I got home, she'd be gone. So with every scenario comes the bad ending. It's best if we do not get that contract and there is NO Florida temptation in my future.

I guess I will spend the rest of today trying to find out if in fact they make a pill to quell the shakes.... I fear the men in white will soon be here to take me away....

You thought it was a joke and so you laughed, you laughed when I had said

that loosing you would make me flip my lid.. RIGHT???

I know you laughed, I heard you laugh, you laughed you laughed and

laughed and then you left, but now you know I'm utterly mad... And..

They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa!!

They're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-haaa

To the funny farm. Where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be

happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats and they're

coming to take me away, ha-haaa!!!!!

Emotional Ambivalence

2009-10-14T04:18:00.000-07:00

.......

Emotional Ambivalence: The existence of mutually conflicting emotions or thoughts about a person, object or idea. Uncertainty about what course to follow: indecision.

This is the conclusion the sorceress leaves me with after Monday's meeting. Aside from not being able to shake this ever present cold, {I believe your health is tied to your emotional state}, I still have difficulty sleeping. In the past ten years I bet I have taken a total of perhaps 7 days where I am actually sick and just could NOT make it to work. The rest of the time I manage to make it through the day sick without any problem. Lately, I seem to have no desire or will power to even try. I have missed 5 days due to sick days since the middle of September, a new record for me. Perhaps I need a dose of my own medicine of laughter, yet there is NOTHING I look forward to as being "funny" or laughable. I wonder just how much of the confusion I feel is being expressed in these meetings. It's really bizarre when asked to sum up your thoughts and feelings about someone or something and there are so many you can't figure out which ones are the most important and which ones are just distractions.

I was asked to define how I felt about Viva... You know what? I don't really want to go down this road as this no doubt led to the emotional ambivalence observation. What I would like to do is to try and stop looking for things that seem like they are hints/clues for me to follow. Friends we know are getting a divorce, I wasn't told about it and when I was, I responded that perhaps I wasn't told because someone didn't want to give me any ideas. I also got a message from my boss requesting that I sit down and look at a list of instruments that a company wants my company to bid on to calibrate. Oddly enough, this company is in the state where Viva lives. I think I was chosen because I am the ONLY one that has the skill set to be able to work on these instruments. That went over really well when I told my wife where the company was located. I keep thinking that signs are put there for a reason. We are being "guided" or directed to a place where we are needed or a place where we are supposed to be. These signs are NOT things I am looking for, they just seem to thrust themselves into my lap, unannounced and unsolicited. Having not been here the past two days, {sick}, I find FOUR missed "unknown" calls to my office phone. I have NOT ever been able to retrieve messages from this phone and no one has been able figure it out either. Yes there are messages on it {red light tells me they are there}... ANother sign I am reading too much into?

Sometime I think that we as humans tend to over analyze things to the point where we create a ton of problems for ourselves that weren't there to begin with. The other night, I wanted to watch that show about Ardi {the skeleton that is 4.5 million years old and a relative of ours}. My wife tried to rain on it by complaining about how they were wasting all this money on things that could be used to feed the poor. I told her the companies that advertise on her programs could also do the same thing, use the money to feed the poor instead of paying for a gossip show or a show about who will be the next singing star in the Latin World. I took her assault on the scientist looking for Ardi as a Biblical attack. Her religion believes the World to be just 6000 years old and that it started with Adam and Eve of course.

They believe scientists lie to create doubt and make people move away from God and towards the dark forces {Satan}... Upon bringing this up a couple days later, it appears that I may have been wrong even though the follow up conversations seemed to have Biblical over tones to them to. What can you do?

I was asked what would happen in the future should Viva and I cross paths. I chuckled at the thought as I believe the only way this will happen is if we both are free and clear of any relationships. I mentioned that, but I was still asked and told that we as humans NEVER stay in one place, we move about and as such there may come a time we meet up. Now as I lay down I am consumed with how this would go, especially if it were to happen in a month or the near future. To be honest, I think that if we got that contract in her state and I was within 200 miles from her, I would leave work early one night and bring her dinner. I would leave it with security in her building and NOT try and see her. I am terrified to see her. I know I would fall apart. I know I am fragile and that whatever is holding me together could not and would not survive seeing her. I know she would not judge me if I broke down and cried but I fear it would be a nervous breakdown of epic proportions that would take place should I have to look into her eyes, for it is there I know she can see my heart, my soul and every feeling I have.

Oh, I wake up in the night
And I reached beside me
Hopin' you will be there

But instead I find someone
Who believe in me when I said
"I'd always care."

(That/Oh) it's sad to belong to someone else
When the right one comes along,
Yes, it's sad to belong to someone else
When the right one comes along.

So I lived my life in a dreamworld
For the rest of my days
Just you and me walkin' hand in hand
In a wishful memory
Oh, I guess that's all
That it would ever be.

Wish I had a time machine
I could make myself go back
Until the day I was born,
And I would live my life again
and rearrange it so that I'll be
Yours from now on

The Garden State

2009-10-08T08:18:00.000-07:00

........

It's taken some time to come to grips with all that was discussed on Monday night. I suppose it is easily summed up into a single plan of action. Find out what my wife is passionate about and have lengthy conversations with her about it. How to speak with someone about a religion that I dislike and disapprove of??? I bridged the topic as she went digging to find out what was talked about {apparently fearful I trashed her, I did not}. I told her that everything I said I have already said to her. She was astounded that I thought that religion was her passion. She wanted to know why I buy her "pop" music if she was so into religion. I reminded her that I listen to new music like 1000 times over until I know it inside and out. She listens to a new disc I buy her about three times and then never again.

The sorceress {psychologists} wanted to know the history of Viva and myself and what the attraction was to her. I pondered for a moment and then recalled all the things that make her who she is... The fact that we PUSH each other to out think one another and to achieve higher levels at just about every aspect of our lives. We knew how to reach each other in terms of reversing moods or feelings. When one of us were down, the other knew just how to bring that person back to Happyville. Then the really big and importand one, that we could discuss ANYTHING at all whithout fear of ridicule or retribution. I told the Sorceress that onle ONCE did Viva ever hesitate to talk about something and it was because it involved parts of the female anatomy that was written in a book about women for women and she wanted me to hear a certain passage and then balked at a could of the words, unable to say them. It was the ONLY time that has ever happened to either of us!!!

The sorceress wanted to know how I could "love" two women at the same time. I told her it was possible to "love" a lot of people, but to be "in love" with someone is quite different. She asked me why I thought I loved Viva, and I told her it was because I was always worried about her, I wanted her to be happy and that I felt like our relationship brought her happines and because it brought her happiness I worked at being there for her for every moment she needed me.

I drove home replaying my final words to Viva and things I wish I had said. I had said that I needed full attention focused on my marriage and that she herself stated quite clearly I am unable to multitask. I told her that perhaps it will fail, but it has to fail on its own not from outside distractions. I told her perhaps one day six months from now we may pass as ships in the night so be it. I should have told her what I think about each night before I go to sleep and all through the day when my mind is not occupied by life's distractions. I should have told her that should I find myself alone one day, I would get rid of everything I have and move to be near her. Perhaps she will have moved on by then, perhaps not. I want to have her in my life in any form that she will allow, for the rest of my life. I wanted to tell her of the things I think about to get me to fall asleep {it has became quite difficult as of late}.

I wanted to tell her how I think about sending her a hundred if not a thousand cards over a couple of weeks to let her know I am near. I want to bring dinner to her place and leave it anonomously with the guards {perhaps I'll bring him some the second and third time I do it}. I want to leave notes with a single rose on her car a few mornings so she knows I am there. I want to let her think through all the ramifications of me being there. I want to leave a final note {perhaps after three weeks} that just has a photo of a place and a map of how to get there and when to be there on a given Sunday for DINNER at a certain time with the instructions to ask for a note left for her. She would need to do this at seven locations each one bringing her closer to where I am. Each one containing a number from my phone number so that after seven she will have my number and be at my house as well as a photo of the next location and a map of how to get there. I want to have her open the front door of my house and see a house lit entirely by HUNDREDS of candles and rose petals all over the floor, leading her to a big box. When she opens the box, she will find a small ring box inside. When she opens that it will be empty.

It is then I will appear, and tell her she can NOT have what was in the small box until she says YES!!!

Then there has been the new one that has me just as interested in fullfilling. I know where her church is and when she will be there. I will wait and make certain she will be there and when the service starts, I will quietly enter and find a seat at the rear of the church but on the side where she will be able to see me. This one seems to have a funny ending EVERY time. She finishes singing, never once taking her eyes off me... She then sits down for a few seconds up front before she gets up and heads right to where I am seated. She leans into my face and asks me what I am doing there. I tell her in a questioning manner, "spiritual fullfillment"??? She grabs me by the ear and pulls me out of the pew and starts dragging me out the back. I ask her if this is how they treat all newcomers to their church. I at least hear a few chuckles as we exit the church. In the parking lot, she hits me in the arm and again asks me why I am there. I again remind her about the spiritual health and she hits me in the arm again before I can finish. I tell her I just have two questions for her...

The first, is she married or involved with someone... The second.... Is there a small chance she will let me into a small part of her life if her answer to number one is yes.... She answers NO to both!!! I laugh and say no to both??? Then she says yes... Then I start torturing her words, yes to being involved or yes to letting me in??? She says no, gets frustrated stomps her foot and punches me yet again... So I ask if the Priest could be called to referee and interpret her answers for me... I also ask her if perhaps she is supposed to be singing by now or not... Again I get no answers just a punch in the arm but I see tears well up in her eyes... I ache knowing I want to hold her but not until I know she doesn't belong to another man.... So trying to diffuse any more weirdness, I tell her, that she will have to change churches because if all I am allowed is to see her from a distance, then I will be a regular and faithful parishoner from now on and upon the hallowed church grounds she will have to at least say hello once and a while, but if that's all I get, then I can live this way the rest of my life.

It is then, before I get an answer to either dream, I fall asleep, and do NOT continue in my sleep... I no longer have dreams, they have been taken from me, I fear forever. Time ticks onward and still there is no light, no hope no nothing but the darkness of sadness??? Depression??? Lonliness???

Second Hand Lions

2009-10-05T07:59:00.000-07:00

Much like the movie "Second Hand Lions", it becomes apparent that in almost every situation in life, we expect one thing and end up getting something we never expected. Most times this represents the thing we want, but upon closer examination, we see it is far from what we wanted.

As the days pass, I continue to see that my lion is in fact much different than I what I had expected. I mean, my present wife and I were married and completely blissful for 9 years and 9 months until I searched for Viva. These past four months I come to see things that I have no doubt were there all along but I chose not to see them. A long conversation I wasn't expecting reared another ugly head Friday night when I watched my wife mock, ridicule and belittle Viva to no end. This comes on the heals of finding out she has lied to me several times over too. Perhaps lying was the best way to get me to answer her questions but I have never lied to her and I don't ever plan on lying to her. She waves the flag of Christianity in my face as she hides behind it and acts anything but Christian.

Yesterday I opted to go to Catholic Mass as I knew she would not set foot inside the doors. When the service ended, she was waiting for me outside. I didn't know if she was there to make certain that I had been inside or to preach to me about the evils of the Catholic church. Once I got into the car, I found out it was for the evils of the Catholic Church and how they are not Christians because they don't read from the Bible {the congregation} and it is the same thing week after week, year after year. So what!!! So is the Baptist way of life. The big difference is that the Baptist yell {above 100db and their music levels are above 100db}{85db and above cause hearing damage over time}. I know this because I brought sound level meters to the Baptist Church and measured them and my company tells me if I am being exposed to levels above 85db I MUST wear hearing protection. Another annoying consistency in the Baptist religion is that they seem to think that God is both deaf and has memory issues. In any given prayer that they break out on Sunday Service, they will say "Senor" the Spanish word for "Lord" an average of 50 times during a five minute prayer. The record being one of the Four Horsemen {Decons}, who in roughly in a 6 and a half minute prayer used the word, "Senor" 199 times!!!! I kid you not. I could not believe it. I told myself if he hit 200, I would scream out YES, 200!!! I see this as a waste of my time and an indication of someone that is not intelligent and has deeper problems than speech issues. It seems to me that they are not happy UNLESS they are MISERABLE. If they are MISERABLE, then they are doing right by their God and they HAVE to let everyone know they are MISERABLE. It is truly an amazing thing to behold.

I say "their God", I have no doubt the God they pray to is the same God I believe in, yet I just think the God I believe in would not be happy with the things they do. The babbling when they pray, the shouting out "manda el fuego, ohhhh Senor" when someone else is praying. The crying and all the other things they do for attention. It seems like a religion predicated on getting attention, the exact opposite of what it says in the Bible of which they proclaim to be experts. Go figure.

Another weekend passes and I still feel empty and lost. I can not explain how it is to feel this way. Times when I have been late to someplace and then realized I was no where close to where I should be, because I was lost, seems to come close but not close enough. Tonight is my second meeting with the marriage councilor. I get to go ALONE!!! Oh I can hardly wait!!!! I enjoy these things, trying to see if they can get me to talk and spill my guts or something. To me it is just a chess game, to find out the trap or agenda they are trying to lead me into. When I can see it before they do, is when the fun begins. We shall see.

Speaking about agendas, yesterday's Mass was all about agendas. I first panicked when I thought the sermon was aimed at me {marriage}. Then I read the weekly flier and listened closely to what was being said. They wanted us to sign a petition maintaining the sanctity of marriage and that marriage by definition {from the Bible} was between man and a woman. Same sex marriages would destroy the institution of marriage. Oddly enough he used the analogy of man and women being like a zipper. Man is one side and woman is the other. The draw is what brings them together. the draw is God and marriage. If one side is not man and the other is woman {same zipper pieces in other words}, they will never fit together. Hmmm, wasn't it Jesus who said when questioned about which of the Commandments from Moses were the greatest and most important, and He said, "I have but one commandment and that is to LOVE one another".

Almost every day, something new shows up to expose the fact that she is either letting down her guard and showing me who she really is, or perhaps my depression has forced her to become someone she isn't {a second hand lion}. I really don't think that is true as I firmly believe we are who we are and we allow people to see just what we feel comfortable with them seeing. At some point when things seem helpless or things are a mess, we may just reveal who we really are in an effort to get things to stop or to try and resolve issues. You can really tell the true nature about anyone once you get them mad and angry. It is in these moments when they can not and do not take the time to choose their words and to say exactly what they really think.

And still life presses onward, and through the darkness so do I.

Titanic

2009-10-05T07:42:00.000-07:00

Every now and then a movie or a song comes along that seems to mark time. You seem to know where you were or what was going on in your life when this ground breaking event took place. Titanic was just such a movie. Released in the late 1997 time frame it quickly became the most popular movie ever. Viva asked me to wait to see it when we could see it together a month or two later in January 1998. Several things took place upon seeing that movie with her.

It became the first time I was able to cry if front of someone or with someone. I have gotten "misty" during several other movies but I had never allowed anyone to see me shed a tear. Come on, admit it, we've all teared up watching Frosty the Snowman, I still do, but I'd find something to distract myself, like thinking about Granny playing first base on my high school baseball team or something... When we were together back then I never felt vulnerable or like I was being anything less than who I was. It just felt "normal" to let your defenses down because no one was going to judge me and no one would make fun of me. So I cried, a lot. It started when the crew member shot a passenger, then saluted and shot himself, then it kicked into full drive when the band finished for the night, then decided there was no place to go and continued playing knowing they were going to die. Watching them thank one another for the times they had together, disbanding and then turning around to realize it was best to die doing what they loved most with the people they shared so much of their lives with. I think the crew member shooting himself got to me because having been in the Air Force, it just hit me hard the whole Military Protocal thing.

As great a movie this is/was, I have never been able to see it play again. TNT had been splashing their 04 October showing of the movie, all over the channels I typically watch. Once again, I could not watch it. I continue to kid myself that it just wasn't that great of a movie and find something better to do. I wonder if perhaps I might someday be able to sit and watch that movie from beginning to end without the hole in me consuming me completely. Some days I wonder if I will ever see the light at the end of this tunnel. No answer, no action can alleviate this mess and I fear that it is a scar that I will bear for all time.

Paradise Lost

2009-09-30T07:34:00.000-07:00

Have you ever loved someone/something so much it hurt and then had to let go of that love? I walk around now with a huge hole in me and I know others can see it. They avoid me, find reasons to look elsewhere or find something more interesting someplace else that they've just remembered. How do you say the words that never got to say? For me, it will have to be here as I know there is no place else to turn, no ear to listen, no eyes to cry. Just when I believe that I can not find another tear to shed, they come in deluges.

I've heard it said {I've forgotten whom it was credited to}, that "the one true cure for love is marriage". I wonder now if that is true or not.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, perhaps it is best to lay most of the cards on the table. While I was busy minding my life and {I'll call her "Viva" as vivo in Spanish means "alive" and that's how I feel when I am with her}, Viva was minding hers too, we met. It was clear from the start there was more than a common interest between the two of us. We are so much alike that we know the other's mood and state of mind without even speaking to one another. It ended when she made the choice back then to go down a road she had started and had to finish. I spent three days away from the World not wanting to be any part of it. Slowly I picked myself up and tried to go on, but she was in everything around me in all the places I went and had to be. I made a choice to move to get away from her memories when I should have moved to be near her and cause her to rethink every day of her life the choice she made.

I made choices over the years for what I thought would lead to my own happiness, but it appears they were just a method to comfort my own loneliness. Viva was always part of my thoughts, it was easier living in a different State not to hurt when I passed by a place that reminded me of her, but I still had my moments when she was there with me. Her birthday was approaching and I thought if I could find her e mail address for work, I would say hi and that I hope she was well and happy. It took a few weeks but I located a site to find her. I submitted my request and waited. She saw the request and didn't know how to respond so she decided to wait and deal with it at a later time. After a week I had given it up as a dead end and then I got a reply asking for further identification of who I was.

Within a day's time, we were right back to where we were 11 years ago. This time our lives were reversed and she was taking steps to be free where I had chosen a path in life to follow. I know she hoped I would choose to abandon that choice and choose to be with her but life altering choices are NEVER easy are they? In the movie "Starstruck" a question was posed:

Tristan and Yvaine are imprisoned in the pirate ship:

Yvaine: Tell me about Victoria, then. {Victoria the girl Tristan thought he loved and wanted to marry and the reason he was searching for the fallen star to bring to her}.

Tristan: Well, she... she... There's nothing more to tell you.

Yvaine: The little I know about love is that it's unconditional. It's not something you can buy.
Tristan: Hang on! This wasn't about me buying her love. This was a way for me to prove to her how I felt.

Yvaine: Ah... And what's she doing to prove how she feels about you?

Tristan: Well... Look, Yvaine, you'll understand when you meet her, all right? If we don't get murdered by pirates first.

Yvaine: Mmm... Murdered by pirates. Heart torn out and eaten. Meet Victoria. I can't quite decide which sounds more fun...

I wonder if the choices I made were made because it seemed I was the one being asked to sacrifice everything and it didn't seem like Viva had anything to lose and I had everything to lose. We tried once to say goodbye so that I could find out if I am where I should be or not. A week of misery for both of us went by and we reached out for each other again. Perhaps because I was no longer depressed, sad, introverted or anti-social that gave away the fact we were talking again. Eventually I was faced with a final demand, stay and honor the promise I had made to my wife or she would make calls that would ruin Viva's position at her job. I chose to protect her by telling her it had to end. It was the first time either of us has ever said anything remotely close to angry to one another. The words stung and they still hurt, I fear they will haunt me the rest of my life.

I want so much to tell her not to forget to remember me because I know every moment I have left alive I will remember her and love her. I can't even breathe anymore. I know no matter what choice I made, I would have lost. Tell me what kind of choice is it that you have to choose whom to hurt and that it will cut you so deeply that it will affect you the rest of your life too? Then you realize only will ever know how badly you are doing now that you made a choice. The other will never know as she can not see my day to day moods and failings. This time it took five days before I could drag myself out into the World {or in this case the doctor's office to feign some fanthom symptoms}. Now every place I go I am haunted by Viva's memories. Places we talked while I shopped, places I stopped so I would not arrive home before we were done talking. Roads I took so that my travel would take longer than it should. She is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I want so much to see a red light blinking on my phone telling me there is a message from her and she isn't mad at me anymore yet I know if that were to happen, it would be the end of my marriage and everything I have now.